America in the Dark over Energy Confusion?

Energy confusion could put America in the dark, insider tells First Coast audience
Oct 25, 2010 The Florida Times-Union--
 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) Steve Patterson 

 -- John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Co. and now chief executive of the nonprofit Citizens for Affordable Energy, was in Jacksonville for a recent luncheon celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Urban League, for which Hofmeister is chairman. He talked to the Times-Union about energy, the environment and politics, and why he thinks America needs an energy plan.

Your book titled "Why We Hate the Oil Companies" was published this year. Should we hate them?
"The oil companies have not done a good job of presenting their ... compelling case to the American people about what they do, how they do it. But neither have the utility companies. And in general most energy-producing companies fail to tell their story. As a result ... the American people are left to guess. So when prices go up or prices go down, people have to guess [why]. Not only do the people have to guess, their elected officials have to guess, too. And as a result from all that guessing ... we end up with suspicion, mistrust, doubt. And in bad times, that turns into hate, as we saw with the high gas prices in the 2008 time frame. ... I don't think it has to be this way."

So what's the alternative?

"Get politics out of energy. Deal with facts and pragmatism and reality. ... There's too much misinformation, disinformation and lack of information. So, people have to know and understand what's what. What's real. ...

We need a plan. We've never had a plan in this country. That plan needs to be a 50-year plan. Not a two-year, four-year political cycle plan, but a 50-year plan that we stick to. That plan has to be broken into three parts, short term, medium term and long term. ...

We have to continue that plan through political cycles, business cycles, majorities from the Democrats, majorities from the Republicans. That's why I say get politics out if it. Our failure to do a plan will take us to the energy abyss ... within the decade, if we stay on the path we're on."

The abyss?

"Gas lines because of liquid fuel shortages, particularly in peak driving seasons. Brownouts, blackouts, particularly in the East Coast, West Coast and Upper Midwest, because those regions have done the least to keep up with the energy requirements for the future and have done the least infrastructure development. And it will take years and year to get out of the energy abyss once we slip into it."

What would cause this?

"Seventy percent of our electricity comes from coal and nuclear in this county, and we are disinvesting. In other words, in the past five years we have shelved over 100 new coal plants that won't be built, which means the average age of our coal plant fleet is getting older by the year. The average age is now 38 years. ...The plants were built for 50 years. What happens in the next decade? More and more coal plants disappear and will not be replaced by new coal plants, based upon the path we're on. Nuclear plants, we haven't built a new one in 30 years, and they're good for 40 years. So what happens in the next 10 year to the nuclear fleet? We decommission it. ... So between decommissioning coal plants and decommissioning nuclear plants over the next decade, we're not replacing that electricity production with anything else of substance. The wind farms and the solar farms are great ideas, but they don't deliver much energy."

What's your solution?

"It occurred to me about a year after retiring [from Shell] that what we need is a change in our governance model over energy. ... What I now advocate ... is creating an independent regulatory agency to manage energy. We need an energy Fed is another way of saying it. In the same way that the Federal Reserve Bank is independent of Congress and independent of the White house and sets monetary policy in the interests of the nation, not the Democratic or Republican agenda, we need a similar independent regulatory agency to set energy and environmental policy, independent of the Democratic or Republican agenda so we can see our way through political cycles."

steve.patterson@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4263
Newstex ID: KRTB-0099-50020758

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